Not every gift and décor store has a personality you can feel when you walk in the door. But at Tuvalu Home Environment, you know the vibe the moment you enter. This shop is based in the heart of Laguna Beach (a sister store is in another beach town, San Clemente). That means a palette favoring … [Read more...]
The Antidote for Boring
The Trend Curve has always held that understanding a trend’s provenance is vital to establishing a comfort level with newness. Sometimes home furnishings trends have their roots in art, for example, a major exhibition. In other cases, media plays a role. Think Yellowstone and the current revival of … [Read more...]
Retail Delight: Kitchen Living Dining Copenhagen
Between two favorite trade fairs, Heimtextil in Frankfurt and Maison & Objet in Paris, I scheduled a weekend of retail reconnaissance in Copenhagen. I’m glad I did! There was so much to see—shops, boutiques and department stores with unique messages and fabulous visual displays. Among the … [Read more...]
Valentine’s Day: Tokens of Affection at Brown Thomas
One of the happiest outcomes of attending Showcase, the annual trade fair of curated Irish products, is that I also get to shop Dublin’s robust retail scene. Brown Thomas is at the top of my must-see list. During Showcase, which takes place in mid-January each year, Valentine’s Day is always the … [Read more...]
Retail Energy in Paris
Over the past three years, we have teamed up on a number of seminars and webinars about best practices in retail visual display. If attendance at our June AmericasMart’s Apparel Mart webinar program is any indicator, audiences are appreciating our unique perspective. They are drawn to our combined … [Read more...]
First Mall Visit Since Stay-at-Home Orders
Malls and retail stores are opening up in SoCal, albeit slowly. Still, it was good to see a bit of life on the bricks-and-mortar scene on my first trip to a mall since stay-at-home orders were issued in mid-March. At the Shops at Mission Viejo this week, department-store anchors Macy’s and … [Read more...]
Halloween, Harvest and Christmas Will Still Come
Are fourth-quarter celebrations at risk, given the current Coronavirus crisis? That’s a question I’ve been hearing for the past several weeks. It was top-of-mind as I prepared The Return to Happy Holidays™, my seasonal color and trend forecast for Halloween, Harvest and Christmas assortments. If … [Read more...]
Time For Less Trend Product?
Is our obsession with color trends killing the planet? A Fast Company article by Elizabeth Segran asks just that question. The piece chides us with numbers that reveal our wastefulness—like how many times we wear an item before banishing it from our closet (down 36% to seven to 10 times since 2000), … [Read more...]
Lessons Learned from Halloween 2017
Those who create retail assortments rarely get a full view of what happens to products they develop and select at the fateful point of purchase. Which items really made cash registers ring? Which in-store displays actually swayed customers to buy? Not knowing the answers to these questions can feel … [Read more...]
Pets and Halloween
When two very popular subjects collide in time and space, the results can be explosively profitable! That’s what’s happening with pet products and Halloween right now. Pets+ Magazine recently reported that pet-related stocks “are crushing it” in the market these days. Bloomberg states, “An … [Read more...]